Saturday, December 22, 2018

At the beginning of the year, I made two personal commitments concerning the subject of race and racism: (1) to read more deeply about race, racism, and racial reconciliation and (2) to not "look away" when I see something offensive and odious in history or the current situation. It is much too easy to skip over problems that seem intractable, convicting, or painful, but our Lord says that the truth will set us free.

This is a summary of the highlights of my reading (which also branched out to listening to good resources, as well) with some bits and pieces copied from my reviews.

I started out on a high point with this professional football player's excellent both/and treatment of the current unsatisfactory situation and also the heart of the problem which is the problem of the human heart. Watson writes, “What is under our skin, and under the skin problem in America, is a spiritual problem. Every time we point at someone else or at an entire race–reducing them to a single story, diminishing them by stereotypes and assumptions–we overlook our own failure. When we point outside ourselves and say, ‘You should have done this...’ or ‘You were wrong to...’ we miss the point. When we focus on another person’s skin, we miss the reality of our own sin” (pg. 188-189).And he does an excellent job of pointing us toward the answer to our sin problem, too–the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. At the same time, he doesn't give any simplistic answers or let anyone off of the hook for working towards solutions.

I wanted to focus on some primary sources this year, and who better to read than Dr. King himself? This book tells the story of the Civil Rights Movement, especially the events of the year 1963. It centers on the events in Birmingham and includes King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” King explains what their aims were, what philosophy guided them, what tactics of direct action through nonviolence they employed, and what the results were. He does a masterful job of carrying the reader along, reasonably dealing with the objections that naturally arise, and persuading, always persuading.

I struggled as I read it to know what I would have done if I had lived in those days and in those places. My best guess (and maybe I still give myself too much credit) is that I would have been a passive bystander, sympathetic but too hesitant to be of much good. King speaks directly to folks like that, and I found myself looking at my shoes, shuffling around, trying not to be ashamed.

Douglass’s autobiography is hard to read and hard to put down. His commitment to minceless truth-telling of the disturbing realities of American chattel slavery makes reading it painful. It would be far easier to look away. But the writing is straightforward, clear, open-eyed. I was drawn into his story and was surprised when it was over so soon.

I’m ashamed that I didn’t know hardly anything about the shameful forced labor of African Americans from the Civil War to the second World War. I knew that Reconstruction was incredibly hard and that sharecropping was backbreaking work for very little if any profit. I knew that prejudice continued unabated, that blacks were hated, lynched, disenfranchised , segregated, and mistreated. But I did not know they were re-enslaved in massive numbers through fraudulent, sketchy, brutal and high-handedly evil practices. Even worse, I didn’t know how hard these cases were to prosecute and to reach any semblance of justice. Honestly, I didn't want to know this, but I'm glad I do now. It helps to know the truth, and it's encouraging to see how far we have come, realizing just how short the time really is. Blackmon has done readers a great service.

I never wrote a review of this one. I'm still trying to understand what justice actually is, and this short introduction to the topic by a Harvard professor explains how different schools of philosophical thought have understood it. I made some progress, but I didn't emerge with a solid definition.

It seems to me that we are still coming to terms with the American Civil War. I know that I am rediscovering how awful it truly was and how awful its true cause was. Blight explores the many facets of its origins, key persons, turning points, and fallout. I'm almost done listening to the 27 hours again, and things are much clearer now for me.

Blight doesn't do a lot with the theology at conflict in the Civil War, so the next book I hope to read is The Civil War as a Theological Crisis by evangelical historian Mark Noll. I hope to get it for Christmas (hint, hint for any family out there reading this).

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

To get a sense of the horror of the war, I read the historical fiction The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. It recounts the events of Gettysburg from the perspectives of the commanders on both sides. I couldn't put it down.

I'm finishing up 2018 by reading the classic abolitionist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. I don't think I've ever read it before, yet everything in it is familiar. (Perhaps it was read to me when I was young?) Stowe's sweetly subversive storytelling grabs the reader and forces them to make eyes-wide-open moral choices. I shouldn't be surprised at how good it is, seeing as it was the bestselling novel of the 19th century, but it's a real page-turner.

What amazes me most as I read it is that it was written before the Civil War. Stowe doesn't know what is going to happen in American history after she writes this. The closest thing I can ever remember reading is Twain's Huckleberry Finn. When you read Huck Finn, the story takes place twenty years before the war, but it was written twenty years afterwards. So there is some luxury of historical perspective. But this was written before the war, and is, in fact, one of its human prompters. Stowe isn't just sitting on a tinderbox. She is helping to write the tinderbox into existence.

2019 and Beyond

Of course, while I've been focused on this subject quite a bit in 2018, I've only begun to scratch the surface, and I'm not done learning and hopefully growing. I want to learn to be a man of God who is not afraid of the truth and committed to living in love and pursuing justice.

"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8).

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About Me

I'm the happy husband of Heather (a Proverbs 31 mega-woman!), the glad father of the Fab Four (Robin, Andrew, Peter, and Isaac), the joyful pastor of Lanse Evangelical Free Church, a district leader in the awesome Allegheny District of the EFCA, book review coordinator of EFCA Today, and the author of a book on Resisting Gossip (CLC Publications, September 2013).

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Content:

Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed on Hot Orthodoxy are my own and not that of Lanse Free Church or anyone else. I am accountable to the elders and congregation of LEFC, but they don't necessarily agree with every single thing I think (and that's a healthy thing). I always say, "I have a million opinions, and they are free to the public!"

Book Reviews:

Many of the books reviewed on Hot Orthodoxy have been given to me by publishers and authors. I've never been asked to produce a favorable review in exchange for the book, and if they did, I wouldn't publish a review.